Pacts for profs, teachers before right-to-work law

By eCampus News staff and wire reports

March 11th, 2013

Wayne State University professors in Detroit and teachers in a suburban school district separately agreed to eight-year contracts, weeks before Michigan’s new right-to-work law takes effect, the Associated Press reports. The law bans mandatory payments from employees to the unions that represent them under collective bargaining agreements. It takes effect in late March. Some schools are seeking to circumvent it by signing agreements before then, according to backers of the legislation. At Wayne State, the American Association of University Professors-American Federation of Teachers Local 6075 announced the contract ratification Thursday. The union said 93 percent of professors who voted approved the deal. The school’s board of governors must approve the pact. The 1,950 employees represented by the union won’t get pay increases this year but will get $1,000 bonuses, 2.75 percent raises next year and 2.5 percent raises in future years. The contract replaces one that expired July 31, 2012…